RALEIGH, NC (May 1, 2018) — Continuum Advisory Group has announced that Kelcey Henderson will succeed Gretchen Gagel as president of the firm.

Kelcey is one of the firm’s original founders, and has played a key role in the organization’s goal of transforming the construction industry through revolutionary innovation.

“Kelcey has a keen ability to understand how to drive change in collaboration with her clients, and her insights will prove invaluable to the future success of Continuum Advisory Group,” said Mike Staun, Associate Director, Global Capital Management, Procter & Gamble.

2018 is off to a busy start for our team at Continuum Advisory Group. We are working with several firms in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction space to build their strategic business development plans for the next five years. With the US economy is in the midst of its third longest expansion in history, currently at 103 months dating to June 2009, there are lots of opportunities in the building and construction market to consider. It should be noted that broad based growth in construction put in place lagged general economic growth with total spending not increasing until 2012.

RALEIGH, NC (December 18th, 2017) — Continuum Advisory Group has released the inaugural episode of their new podcast, Built Revolution.

Built Revolution is a podcast about how to transform the construction industry, how it’s already being transformed, and how professionals can get in on the action. It explores this topic through engaging with important people in the industry: thought leaders, innovators, disruptors, and anyone else pushing the industry forward.

The construction industry is facing disruption. Like any industry facing sweeping change, we can either choose to innovate and surpass expectations — or we can sit back and let the shift overcome our businesses.

Stephen Mulva and CII recently unveiled a draft Manifesto calling for transformational change in our industry (see below). Continuum Advisory Group has been a proud partner in this effort, coordinating workshops throughout the country that have provided input for this Manifesto. These discussions have also laid the groundwork for the 2018 CURT Owner Trends Study.

To further drive this change, we now invite leaders to share their stories of bold and innovative strategies to achieve success. We want to hear more about transparency, trust, under-funding of R&D, and fragmentation. We also want to hear how your team is overcoming these challenges. If you have a story of bold and innovative strategies in project execution, we want to feature it! We also welcome nominations from throughout the construction industry.

This information and study will tie into the 2018 CURT National Conference theme of Leading Strategies to Optimize Project Outcomes and will highlight the stories of owners that demonstrated excellence in a variety of areas.

We can lead this change or be overcome by it. We can achieve improvements in cost, schedule, quality, and safety performance results to support the needs of our citizens. We gathered some of your stories at the recent CURT November member meetings in Atlanta. Please continue to share your stories with us. Contact Kelcey at khenderson[at]continuumag.com.

This year’s CURT (Construction Users Roundtable) conference was centered around a simple idea: excellence in total project performance. But like any great idea, the steps to bring it to life can be far from simple.

Our annual owners study seeks to outline those steps and figure out how great owners have already made progress. This year’s study explores the key ingredients of project excellence and how to bring it to life.

In our last installment, we looked internally at lean processes and tools. Lean and similar methodologies have a definite impact on your scheduling and budget, but you shouldn’t ignore external factors! That’s why today we’re looking at the ever-important owner-contractor relationship.

What Makes a Good Owner-Contractor Relationship?

To get the full picture, we asked the same question to both A/E/C and owner teams: what sets high excellence owners or A/E/C partners apart?

The results are similar, with the most-desired attributes centering around communication. Both sides want transparency, which streamlines problem solving and mitigates cost overruns. That further contributes to an atmosphere of trust, which helps eliminate micromanagement and other hurdles that lower morale and stymie innovation.

That idea of communication births long-term, fruitful partnerships. Owners, in particular, expressed the desire for long-term relationships with contractors they can depend on. Contractors also desire less transactional relationships, preferring to be seen as part of a team.

The Millenial Perspective

In Fall 2016, a workshop at the CURT Young Professionals Summit asked similar questions. The results showed a great deal of overlap between the mindset of the next generation of construction and our 2017 findings.

Protect Each Other: there’s a win-win spirit in a good owner/contractor relationship, one where both businesses help each other. Contractors can act as “trusted advisors” for owners.

Clear Communication: especially relevant given our 2017 findings, young professionals want openness. For contractors, this means letting owners know early of planning changes; for owners, it means giving contractors an explanation for losing RFPs. A major theme was to stop “sandbagging,” or not putting one’s full capabilities forward.

Clear Expectations: for contractors, this means that owners need to be willing to hear feedback on any unrealistic expectations for a project. Such misunderstandings can cause huge delays, balloon budgets, and sour owner/contractor relationships.

Pre-Planning: the big issue here is time. Owners and contractors both want more upfront time to get on the same page. This arguably helps with items 2 and 3, as it deliberately carves out time to set expectations and goals.

Last week, Stephen Mulva and CII unveiled a draft Manifesto, which you can read in full below, calling for transformational change in our industry. Continuum Advisory Group has been a proud partner in this effort, coordinating workshops throughout the country that have provided input for this Manifesto. Our industry is facing disruption. We will either do it to ourselves, or it will be done to us. We applaud this bold thinking.

This year’s CURT (Construction Users Roundtable) conference was centered around a simple idea: excellence in total project performance. But like any great idea, the steps to bring it to life can be far from simple.

Our annual owners study seeks to outline those steps and figure out how great owners have already made progress. This year’s study explores the key ingredients of project excellence and how to bring it to life.

In our last installment, we defined project excellence and its effects on an organization. Today we’re going to look at one of its greatest starting points: your company culture. We interviewed owners and identified four clear, actionable principles of excellence-friendly culture.

The recent decision by the United States International Trade Commission, in which the commission found that cheap imported solar panels and modules have harmed domestic panel manufacturers, is creating a good deal of uncertainty about the future of the solar market in the US. Our team at Continuum Advisory Group completed some research on the Utility Scale Solar business this summer for a client. Despite a recent slowdown in Utility Scale Solar projects in 2017, there is a large amount of work in the pipeline. As shown in this data from the Solar Energy Industries Association, the current pipeline of Utility Scale Solar is greater than the current amount of Utility Scale Solar installed.

Two of Continuum Advisory Group’s Senior Consultants, Nate Scott and Kelcey Henderson, just returned from an 11 day trip to India. Outside of it being a wild, unique adventure for both, full of many cows and heart-pounding traffic experiences, there was excellent progress made with one of Continuum Advisory Group’s global, multi-billion dollar clients. The challenge for Nate and Kelcey? Introduce Continuum Advisory Group’s proprietary Integrated Team Performance (ITP) processing addition to various Lean tactics, to a multicultural Indian-based construction team responsible for the construction of a large manufacturing facility.

This year’s CURT (Construction Users Roundtable) national conference was centered around a simple idea: excellence in total project performance. But like any great idea, bringing it to life can be far from simple.

Our annual owners study seeks to outline the path and figure out how great owners have already made progress. This year’s study explores the key ingredients of project excellence and how to bring it to life.